Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

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Too Late

The truth begins to dawn on Ramesh Ponnuru - who, as I recall, played a prominent role in banishing immigration restrictionists from National Review, way back in the days when it might have made a difference:

"To grasp how powerfully demographic change is reshaping the political landscape try this thought experiment about the 2008 election.

"Start by considering the electorate's six broadest demographic groups - white voters with at least a four-year college degree; white voters without a college degree; African-Americans; Hispanics; Asians; and other minorities.

"Now posit that each of those groups voted for Barack Obama or John McCain in exactly the same porportions as it actually did. Then imagine that each group represented the share of the electorate that it did in 1992. If each of these groups voted as it did in 2008 but constituted the same share of the electorate as in 1992, McCain would have won. Comfortably."

The point is not that the national fortunes of the GOP constitute a sufficient reason to oppose mass immigration; rather, the point is that the GOP is so world-historically daft, so supine in its thralldom to the narrow corporate interests that attempted to force the base of the party to choke down their dispossession, that it cannot even act in its own narrow self-interest. Well, that, and that the conservative movement was purged so as to facilitate the realization of this folly: conservative thought was to run in the narrow, dry streambeds dictated, not even by the crass electoral interests of the GOP, but by the sort of people who have no allegiances save to their own balance sheets.

I don't think the electoral prospects of the Republican Party represent a prudent reason to support or oppose such a fundamental policy.

Not per se, but the demographic revolution makes any conservative politics, in or out of the GOP, less possible and less effective. Which is no small reason for the policy of mass immigration in the first place.

I don't think the electoral prospects of the Republican Party represent a prudent reason to support or oppose such a fundamental policy. Wouldn't most aborted fetuses probably grown up to be Democratic voters? That doesn't mean we should favor unrestricted abortion.

A minor quibble, but the presence of a prudent reason does not necessarily override other more important reasons. I don't favor unrestricted abortion because homicide isn't justified by potential destructive political views; but that's not to say that potential destructive political views ought not to be considered at all since there's a limit to how quickly populations can be persuaded or assimilated into a culture that can sustain a healthy society. It's a small reason that doesn't overrule more significant reasons, but a reason nonetheless.

Likewise, "electoral prospects of the Republican Party" understood merely as "my side's points" are not particularly significant. But "electoral prospects of the Republican Party" understood as "the strength of a moderately less unjust/destructive political philosophy's popular support" is important.

Given that the GOP is generally inept in opposing or rolling back radicalism, when it isn't advancing radicalism itself, oughtn't concerned people try to fight where all the consequential battles have been waged? I mean of course, within the Democratic Party.

Is it better to be a rump faction within a ruling party or a rump party simply?

"If demographic trends continue" is a hypothetical, but if there is accuracy to the projections of Democratic dominance, when should bandwagon-jumping-on be considered?

My point here is not to make a case for an immigration policy but to offer some notes on how to think (and how not to think) about immigration. But I do have some views on what that policy should be. I think that America would assimilate its immigrants better, more easily, and faster if the total number of immigrants each year — legal and illegal — were brought down. I think that more assimilation would bring a range of benefits to native-born Americans, to those immigrants we let in, and to future immigrants. I don’t think that it is necessary to be angry at immigrants, legal or illegal, to believe these things.

But the piece is not about making the case for those preferences. What he is arguing in the bulk of the article is that one ought not separate illegal from legal immigration --- that they are inextricably linked.

I'd venture to say that Ponnuru has largely a globalist vision of the world -- as Steve Sailer says: "invade the world - invite the world." Not only has he supported the litany of globalist causes (immigration, free trade, and hyper-interventionism) but he also champions a very universalist rights-laden version of Christianity -- one that did not exist prior to the French Revolution.

If he is coming around on immigration, so much the better, but as Epstein documents above , it seems unlikely.

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